If you you’ve signed up for the Apple Affiliate Program, you may have learned that Apple is leaving the Linkshare affiliate network with plans to replace it with "Performance Horizon Group (PHG). Unknown to us, Apple also had another affiliate solution with third party DGM Networks, but Apple is also abandoning this for PHG as well. The loss of Apple on Linkshare may be a shock; but remember that Linkshare remains an invaluable affiliate network, supporting software publishers since Microsoft remains a premier client. Linkshare will continue to be supported in the PAD Specification.

Apple is advising existing affiliates migrating to the new network so they can maintain earning existing commissions, while replacing their Linkshare and DGM links before October 1st, 2013. It is almost certain that PHG will be under evaluation for official addition to the PAD Specification by this date.

Apple is claiming three main benefits to PHG over existing terms with it’s affiliates. First, the standard commission will be increased from 5% to 7%. Second, affiliates will earn commissions on purchases within a 24 hours period. (We didn’t know that commissions were only earned when they occurred in real time). Third, improved global affiliate tracking support will allow commissions from purchases from Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Japan and more. The Apple iTunes affiliate signup to the PHG Program for existing affiliates is available here: http://affiliate.itunes.apple.com/apply

Preparing your app for the US market will enable you to thrive and prosper, right? Maybe. But many American marketers and app inventors forget some critical facts.

Over 535 million world users access the Internet in English. But that number, while huge, represents only 27% of Internet users worldwide. Add over 500m Chinese and over 165m Spanish speakers, and you’ve targeted another 12% of the world market. That leaves many millions of Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), German, Arabic, French, Russian and Korean speakers whom your App is neglecting. Together they make up another 21.5% of world Internet users, with an additional 350 million users speaking other languages.

As you can see, preparing your app only in English leaves a huge gap for your app – and a hole your competitors can fill. Localizing your app in other languages through a professional language service suddenly expands your market beyond what you might have imagined.

The two biggest mistakes that publishers make when localizing for other markets are:

To assume that Machine Translation (MT) such as Google or Babelfish will work fine. It won’t. MT makes comical, critical and casual mistakes that simply damage your credibility and reputation. As an example,

English Source

Google Translate into Spanish

Back translation into English

Shoppers in Budapest can by products from the US, while an American teen could be downloading folk music from a site in Nepal.

Buyers in Budapest for U.S. products, while an American teenager could be the traditional music download site in Nepal.

To presume that any in-house employees or native-speaking friends who speak the desired language can translate it properly. They usually can’t. Translation is an art which professional linguists study at a grad level. They understand word usage, proper spelling and grammar, technical terminology in a wide variety of fields, and know how to render cultural concepts, not just words.
Examples:
A Latino in the US wanted to say “Time flies” in Spanish. She said, “Tiempo moscas” which means Time and Flies (as in the annoying bug). Another wanted to say “I can fly.” Instead of saying Puedo volar, he used, “Yo lata mosca” (which means I – tin can – annoying bug).Do you think those are too obvious? What about a client’s reviewer who changed the phrase “motor oil” to “salad oil” or who used “polish” when she meant to say “Polish.” We’ve seen it.

Moral of these examples? Rely on a professional language service to localize your app correctly, quickly and relatively inexpensively. And if you think that professional translations are expensive, just wait until you see what amateur mistakes will cost you. (Why do people usually have the money to fix major errors but balk over spending to do it correctly the first time?)

Difficulties encounteredand overcome

Many of the challenges in app language localization involve formatting and layout. A professional language service can effectively make an exact copy of the original file in another language. For websites and apps, it is essential to maintain all programming code intact.

Inexperienced writers or non-professionals assume that they can use Notepad to translate their files. But that too is fraught with risk: Delete just one tag or just one “;” in C language and the compiling will not run. Sometimes, non-professional translators are used to translating reserved words like If or While. This too makes the code unusable.

In addition, publishers should always utilize correct fonts. Each language has its own hyphenation, punctuation and word-splitting rules. Imposing English assumptions on other languages simply will not work.

Chinese, Japanese and Korean – the most common non-Western writing systems – require special fonts. Chinese itself is written with Simplified characters for China and Traditional characters for Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere overseas. If you use the wrong font, your file will appear scrambled and unreadable.

In another example, Russian is very large compared to English and it is better to use professional language services to keep the text inside the label components.

Arabic and Hebrew are the most commonly written RTL – right to left – languages. Localizing for those markets requires the right version of software. InDesign, a primary layout program, has a Middle East version which language services commonly have but non-professionals do not.

In conclusion, professional language agencies have many years’ experience keeping clients out of trouble. This includes knowing what works and was doesn’t, what coding rules to apply and which not to, how to adapt the content of an app or file to the target culture, and knowing standard grammar and correct word usage in each target language.

For a relatively small investment, you can reach the 73 percent (hundreds of millions) of world internet users who do not speak English … and get your company or app registered with other countries’ primary search engines in their languages. By delaying, what is this lost opportunity costing you?

Auerbach International (www.auerbach-intl.com), contributed to this article. The firm, a 25 year old firm specializing in providing professional clients with translation services, can render anything written, spoken or electronic into the top 80 languages. We use only the finest qualified professional linguists who deliver with the fastest times humanly possible and acculturate your concepts for the target country. You can also reach at tel 415 592 0042 x 107 or at translations@auerbach-intl.com.

Intel Corporation has announced it’s “Intel App Innovation Contest 2013” or “AIC 2013”, promoting the development of new applications for the Windows 8 Platform. Open to the global marketplace, it has been launched simultaneously in Russia, China, India and the US. At the end of the submission period, 500 finalists will be selected and will be awarded a Lenovo All-In-One or a Windows Tablet device. The Top nine winners will share in $100,000 USD. The contest is also sponsored by PC and Laptop manufacturer, Lenovo. To support the promotion, four major software developer communities have been selected to promote the contest.

Developers enter the contest from one of the four partners. You do not have to a developer from a specific country as you can enter from any of the four communities.

Code Project for example will accept entries from: Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Canada (excluding Quebec), Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, People’s Republic of China, Republic of South Africa, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, UK, Ukraine, and the 50 United States of America (and the District of Columbia) .Unfortunately, due to various country-specific laws, contest submissions guidelines were limited to these countries.

AIC 2013 is a 3 stage process. Round 1 requires a developer to register and submit a Windows 8 app idea by September 4. Submissions will be judged by the four partner communities. From this large group of submissions, the partners will select a final list of 125 from each submitted site. If you are one of these finalists, you will be sent a Lenovo ThinkPAD Tablet 2 or a Lenovo Horizon 27″ All-In-One. Finalists will have to six weeks, from September 18 until October 30 to code, test, tweak, and debug their app for Round 2. Round 2 submissions will be judged by representatives from Intel and a panel of respected experts.

If your demo is one of the top five in the contest’s six categories, you will be invited to create a 5 minute video that presents its features of your application. Submissions of these 5 minute videos will accepted between November 13 and November 20, 2013

There are two categories for the All-In-One – Entertainment and Games; and four for the Tablet – Education, Finance, Healthcare and Retail. There are six Category Prizes of $10,000 cash USD, two Platform Grand Prizes of $10,000 USD and an Overall Grand Prize of $20,000 USD. In addition, there are promotional prizes for the winning apps and $5,000 USD worth of prizes for Spot Challenges throughout the contest.

If you have an idea for a Windows 8 app in any of these categories, this contest is an awesome way to launch and promote it while winning some great prizes and revenue.

The AppVisor Blog will feature news, commentary and support information that will be of interest to our large community of software publishers, website operators and service providers who support the PAD Specification for application software. We will also provide relevant advice from our support team and ASP PAD Committee members.

Anyone can submit BLOG topics by contacting us at support @ appvisor.com.